Strange New Worlds Just Shockingly Retconned Star Trek History & Canon Forever

Warning: SPOILERS For Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 1 - "Valles Marineris"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds kicked off season 4 by forever retconning the history of Earth, Mars, and humanity in the canonical Star Trek universe. Directed by Chris Fisher and written by Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere sends the USS Enterprise 65 million years into the past.

Not only did the Starship Enterprise arrive in Earth's pre-history, but Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and his crew, stranded in the past, found themselves in the middle of an interplanetary war. 65 million years ago, Mars was a civilized world capable of space travel, but was being attacked and invaded by an arachnid species called the Dol'Drms.

The Dol'Drms, which laid waste to Mars' Valles Marineris region and killed millions, occupied the heretofore unknown fifth planet in the Sol system between Mars and Jupiter. Captain Pike brokered peace talks with the Martian captain, Cassel (Saffron Burrows), but she was offended when Pike didn't disclose that the USS Enterprise came from the future, when Mars is already a dead world.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Just Changed Earth & Human History

At the end of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere, Cassel steals one of the USS Enterprise's antimatter fuel cells to make a weapon of mass destruction against the Dol'Drms' homeworld. Pike moved to stop Cassel from committing genocide but chose not to act when Chris realized that there is no fifth planet in the Sol system in the future.

By allowing the Martians to destroy the Dol'Drms' homeworld, Captain Pike caused a cascading effect that wrote history as we know it, with the jaw-dropping retcon that the Starship Enterprise is responsible for that history.

First, the Dol'Drum planet's destruction created the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The blast wave from the Dol'Drm homeworld's explosion destroyed Cassel and the Martians' ship, but Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck) deduces that its energy could propel the USS Enterprise's time warp back to the 23rd century.

As the Starship Enterprise jumped back to the future, an asteroid remnant crashed into Earth, becoming the Chicxulub impactor meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This allowed the evolution of mammals and, eventually, humans, to become the dominant species on Earth.

Mars eventually became the barren Red Planet we know today, but Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), who analyzed Cassel and the Martians' DNA, found similarities to the genetics of many different species. M'Benga determined that the Martians were able to escape their dying planet and propagate throughout the galaxy.

What Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Change To History Means

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 boldly takes a 'big swing' by rewriting history in the Star Trek universe. 65 million years ago, Captain Pike and the Starship Enterprise are the determining factor that set the course of Earth and Mars' history, as well as the reason there is an asteroid belt between Earth and Mars.

By allowing the Martians to destroy the Dol'Drms' homeworld, killing billions of the alien insects, Captain Pike and the USS Enterprise also caused the death of the dinosaurs by a meteoric impact. Meanwhile, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also retconned who the first aliens on Earth were.

The first aliens to land on Earth were the Dol'Drms', whose ship was shot down by the Martians and crashed on Earth. The Starship Enterprise's landing party found the remains of the Dol'Drms' ship and the dead bodies. However, the second alien to visit Earth turned out to be the landing party's leader, Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), who is Illyrian.

Since it happened 65 million years ago, the Dol'Drms crashing on Earth, and Number One setting foot on the Terran homeworld, logically predates the Progenitors seeding Earth with humanoid DNA, and the Preservers later visiting our planet, as established by Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: The Original Series.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere ends with Admiral Robert April (Adrian Holmes) confirming the Starship Enterprise's shocking role in human history, but he opted to keep this earth-shattering information classified. Now, it seems every human in Star Trek owes their existence to Captain Pike.